The present disclosure relates generally to semiconductor devices, and more particularly to drive current modifications in semiconductor devices.
For decades, chip manufacturers have made semiconductor devices faster by making them smaller. Further, there are many techniques to improve mobility of the charge carriers of the semiconductor devices. The stress-line engineering is one aspect that can affect the ability of semiconductor devices to generate a high channel current. In some instances, the drive current or channel current may be increased by increasing device scaling or by decreasing the channel dopant. Additionally, the gate dielectric layer may be thinned and the dielectric constant of the gate dielectric layer may be increased. Reducing channel doping to increase the drain current typically results in a high stand-by leakage current that is not adequate for power management. Further, thinning of the gate dielectric layer and the incorporation of high-k dielectrics increases process complexity and cost.